ONLINE JOURNALISM AND THE PROMISES OF NEW TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

Research about online journalism has been dominated by a discourse of technological innovation. The “success” of online journalism is often measured by the extent to which it utilizes technological assets like interactivity, multimedia and hypertext. This paper critically examines the technologically oriented research about online journalism in the second decade of its existence. The aim is twofold. First, to investigate to what degree online journalism, as it is portrayed in empirical research, utilizes new technology more than previously. Second, the paper points to the limitations of technologically oriented research and suggests alternative research approaches that might be more effective in explaining why online journalism develops as it does.

Keywords:

• hypertext
• interactivity
• Internet technology
• multimedia
• online journalism

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Sally J. McMillan and the Journal of Interactive Advertising for permission to use the table in Figure 1.

Notes

1. “Videotex (or “interactive videotex”) was one of the earliest implementations of an ‘end-user information system’. From the late 1970s to mid-1980s, it was used to deliver information (usually pages of text) to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television” (Wikipedia on Videotex, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotex, accessed 27 November 2009).

2. Journalism, Vol. 10, No. 5, published October 2009, special issue on “Newswork”, edited by Mark Deuze and Tim Marjoribanks.